Hoox Magic Cup review: Good enough for personal use

Design

As its name indicates, the Magic Cup Bluetooth speaker resembles a cup. It is compact with a plastic body and a metallic speaker grille at the top. There is a hoox branding at the middle of the speaker grille. At the side, there is a Bluetooth light indicator, the power button, play or call button, a microphone to attend calls, and an AUX port too. On the opposite side, there is a microUSB charging port. There is a rubber base to hold the speaker on to any surface.

The Magic Cup speaker looks compact and ultra-portable. However, it falls on the heavier side of the scale. It is relatively heavier than the other portable Bluetooth speakers we have reviewed. But it is still portable.

Pairing process

It is a very simple and straightforward process to pair this Bluetooth speaker with a smartphone. It hardly took a few minutes for me to pair the speaker with my smartphone. I just had to turn on the speaker and have Bluetooth turned on in my smartphone. I just had to find for new devices and the speaker with the name S01 is displayed. It is easy to pair the speaker.

Performance

This portable Bluetooth speaker did deliver a good performance for its pricing and size. It is capable of churning out impressive output. I had used it at home and it did fill the entire room with sound. It was loud enough that I could listen to the tracks from another floor. The volume controls aren't on the speaker and has to be controlled using the paired smartphone.

Though the audio output is impressive for a portable Bluetooth speaker, what I need to mention is its inability to deliver intense bass output. The bass-rich tracks aren't that great to listen with the Magic Cup speaker. In fact, the speaker started delivering a noisy and distorted output on playing bass intense tracks at maximum volume. But we shouldn't expect a lot from a portable speaker at this pricing.

I liked the presence of a microphone, which lets answering calls when the device is connected to the speaker. The audio clarity of calls was decent and there wasn't any lag or disturbance.

Battery

The battery life of this speaker really impressed me. The 500mAh battery operating under its hood is long lasting. I watched a movie of around 2 hours and 30 minutes duration and played music for over 2 hours with this speaker continuously. Not to mention that the battery didn't require charging even then. There is a battery icon displayed on my smartphone next to the Bluetooth icon on the status bar. This shows the battery level left on the speaker and is handy to connect it to the charger.

Verdict

From my usage, this Magic Cup Bluetooth speaker from Hoox is definitely aimed at those who seek portability. It is a good choice for people who like to carry a small speaker in their bag or use a wireless speaker in their kitchen, workspace or bedside.

One thing to note is that this speaker is not meant for parties. You cannot enjoy great sound output from the portable speaker. To summarize, it is a speaker for personal use and is priced reasonably as well.

There are rivals from big brands such as the JBL Go, Logitech X100, Portronics Sublime 2 and more in the sub-Rs. 2,000 price bracket. We recently reviewed the X-MINI Nano-X, which is also a portable Bluetooth speaker at the same price point. We need to see if the Hoox Bluetooth speaker can withstand the competition in the Indian market.